GUWAHATI, India / KATHMANDU, Nepal (Reuters) – Nearly four million people in the northeastern state of Assam and neighboring Nepal have been displaced by heavy floods from the monsoon rains, and dozens disappeared when deaths rose to at least 189, government officials said Sunday. .
FILE PHOTO: Girls rowed a makeshift raft in front of submerged houses in a flood-affected village in Karbi Anglong district, north-eastern Assam state, India, on July 11, 2019. REUTERS / Anuwar Hazarika
The overflowing Brahmaputra River, which flows through Tibet from China, India and Bangladesh, has damaged crops and caused landslides, displacing millions of people, authorities said.
More than 2.75 million people in Assam have been displaced by three flood waves since late May that claimed 79 lives after two more deaths were reported overnight, a state government official said.
“The flood situation remains critical, as most rivers flow menacingly above the danger mark,” Assam’s water minister Keshab Mahanta told Reuters.
Assam faces the double challenge of fighting floods and the coronavirus pandemic. Of 33 districts, 25 remained affected after the current flood wave, which started a fortnight ago.
India is grappling with the new coronavirus, which has infected nearly 1.1 million people and 26,816 have died from COVID-19 disease, government data showed on Sunday.
In neighboring Nepal, the government asked residents of the southern plains on Sunday to remain vigilant as heavy monsoon rains were expected to hit the Himalayan nation, where more than 100 have died in floods and landslides since June, authorities said.
Some 110 people were killed and 100 others were injured when landslides and flash floods washed away or razed homes, overturned roads and bridges, and displaced hundreds of people in 26 of the country’s 77 districts, police said.
Interior Ministry official Murari Wasti said the death toll is expected to rise as 48 people are still missing.
“Search and rescue teams search for the missing in different places, but the chances of finding them alive are slim,” Wasti told Reuters.
Barun Paudel, from the weather forecast office in the capital Kathmandu, said heavy rains are expected to hit much of the mainly mountainous nation in the next four days.
“We urge residents to remain vigilant against possible landslides and floods,” he said.
Landslides and flash floods are common in the states of Nepal, Assam and Bihar during the annual rainy season from June to September.
Reports from Zarir Hussain in Guwahati, Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu; Written by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Jacqueline Wong
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